


Look Before You Leap

by glitterburn (orphan_account)



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-28
Updated: 2010-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 06:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/glitterburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mika and Eddie spend some time reflecting on the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look Before You Leap

The winter sun shades the waves, picking out glittering detail on the crests before they furl into darkness, flatten themselves out, and splash, muted, against the side of the _Anaconda_. We are not so far out to sea, a matter of several hundred metres perhaps – it's difficult for me to tell, exactly, for I am still used to judging distances into fast corners and sharp curves, and I have never been one for sailing. Distance at sea is misleading, or so I have heard. I suppose one could argue that all distances are misleading in some form or another.

We left Monaco a few days ago, and cut our way meanderingly across the Mediterranean. Any lingering guilt I felt at leaving Erja was offset when she put a protective hand over her bump and told me, smiling, but in no uncertain terms, that I was getting underfoot. Hugo she could deal with; a toddler was much easier to boss around than a husband. I could have argued against that, but I didn't. Instead, I packed light - trunks, shorts and t-shirts, towel, a couple of books I hadn't managed to finish yet – and I swapped our apartment for the far more cramped quarters of Eddie's yacht.

I'm still a little surprised that he invited me, to be honest. We've never been close; never been friends. We were rivals in '99, and it was only the tortuous workings of the Ferrari mindset that robbed him of the chance to be WDC that year. I have often wondered how he lived with the knowledge that he was denied the title. I wondered how it affected his relationship with Michael, especially as Michael often professes ignorance when matters get complicated and emotionally distasteful.

I suppose I could ask him now. More so than David, Eddie was the last great almost-ran. So far away: so close. At the end of the '99 season, I had a flash of guilt that made me want to hand over the title. There were two winners that year, but history would rather concentrate on a single victor.

I push the thoughts to the back of my mind where they belong, gone but never forgotten, and I admire the view from the shining white deck. The pilot has throttled back, allowing the _Anaconda_ to cruise slowly through the waters. From a glance at the charts in the wheelhouse earlier, I know we're just off the coast of Sardinia. A light aircraft buzzes overhead, banking once so that the sunlight flashes off its wings, before it begins it descent to the airfield at Oristano. The sudden sharp shaft of light from above is balanced by the rush of water almost directly to port, where the river tumbles out from the mountains and into the Mediterranean. Surrounding the flow of water and strung out along the coast like immobile guardians are a line of cypress trees, dark green to the point of black shadow above the shore.

I try to recall what cypress trees are supposed to represent. Laurel I know to be the symbol of victory, woven into wreaths for the lower formulae and hung around the necks of the winners like yokes around oxen. I think F1 used laurel wreaths once upon a time, and again I wonder why this practice died out. Perhaps it wasn't considered manly enough to be draped with bits of foliage, just as it was considered de trop for the winning driver to be decorated with pretty girls. I'm sure Eddie wouldn't have minded one if he could have the other.

There's a noise behind me, and I turn to see him clambering over the deck, his shirt half-unbuttoned over a pair of casual beige Chinos. He's even wearing deck shoes. He takes his sailing very seriously indeed. I return my gaze to the sight of the Sardinian coast slipping past, and feel him sit down beside me on the blanket he spread out earlier. It's tartan, as dark a green as the cypress trees with stripes of red and white running through it, and although Eddie admitted with a grimace that he bought it cheap from a petrol station, it's soft and warm.

"Nice, isn't it," he says after we've sat in silence for a few minutes. I'm not sure if he means the view, the company, or the _Anaconda_ , so I make some small sound of affirmation that he can interpret as he pleases.

He tries again: "D'you want a drink?"

This time I look at him, narrowing my eyes against the glare of the light to examine my own reflection in his sunglasses. He holds up a bottle of beer, drawn straight from the refrigerator. It's still oozing moisture, crinkling the label. Although I'm thirsty, I shake my head. There's only one bottle, and I don't feel like sharing it with him.

Eddie shrugs and pops the cap, dropping it over the side of the vessel. I watch it swim downwards, the light glinting on it for scant moments until the blue claims it forever. Beside me, Eddie leans back on the blanket and sighs. We look at nothing for a while: me at the waves, Eddie at the sky.

"Do you know what cypress trees mean?" I ask.

I fully expect him to laugh. Instead, he treats the question seriously, sitting forwards again and placing the beer bottle flat on the deck between his thighs. "Sorrow," he says. "Mourning."

I nod. It seems appropriate, somehow.

He pulls down the sunglasses low enough to look at me over the top of the frames. "Why, Mika?"

Now it's my turn to shrug. "I just wondered," I reply, gesturing vaguely towards the shore. "There's so many of them."

Eddie lies back on the blanket, the beer forgotten. "All the sadness of the world," he murmurs, and then, louder, he says, "Cypress branches are fixed to the doors of a house in mourning. I think they burned the branches at funerals, too. Or something like that."

A silence falls, broken only by the waves lapping at the hull and the far-off distant sound of the airfield. Sound carries across water; its distance is misleading. When he speaks again, his voice is softer, musing: "Do you regret your retirement?"

I think about it. "No. It was the right thing to do."

"At the right time?" Eddie presses.

"I believed so then."

"And now?"

I raise my eyebrows at him. "Who are you questioning here, Eddie – me, or yourself?"

He laughs, and it is a sound full of easy charm. "I always wonder 'what if…' in everything I do," he responds. "And so I wondered if you were also like me in that respect. What if you'd won in 2000…"

"What if _you'd_ won in '99," I counter with a wry smile, acknowledging my earlier thoughts.

"What if neither of us had got involved with Mike," Eddie says, and it is a statement so loaded that I freeze upon the blanket, the camaraderie of a moment ago vanishing rapidly. He swears, reaching for my hand, and hurriedly tries to put things right: "You know what I mean, Mika. He fucked us both royally. You and me, though… we could've been something good."

"No, we couldn't," I say sadly. "It wouldn't have worked."

"I think it could."

He's so stubborn at times, but his attitude makes me smile. "Anyway, it's a pointless argument. We cannot go back."

He throws me a challenging look. "Can't we?" And then his mood changes, becomes playful, and he nods at the sea. He grins at me, quirking an eyebrow. "I will if you will."

I smile in return, abandoning my place on the blanket and hurrying to the side of the yacht. Below, the water is a blue clearer than the sky. Eddie is at my side, already laughing, jostling me. He throws his sunglasses onto the deck and grabs my shoulder.

"Jump!"

Together, we go over the side. The water is deeper than I expected, and much colder.


End file.
